iPods, iPhones, iDunno?

For years, I've carried a "smart phone", i.e. the Palm Treo line of phones, ever since they were more PDA-like than phone like. My objectives were to have one contact database that was portable, packaged in a cell phone, and with light browsing capabilities. This line of phone served well to meet the requirements...

Then along comes the sexy iPhone, and all the "cool kids" are carrying them around. I do like them, but I would feel lost without my keyboard on the Treo. The Blackberry has a keyboard and is built for email and communication. However, I can’t get used to the little thumb ball mouse.

I have my eye on the Palm Pre (which seems like a good compromise between what I'm used to and the future of cell phones), when a colleague chuckled and said "Palm doesn't stand a chance against the iPhone and its 1000s of applications".

Ouch! My friend may be right. I’m not sure of the number of apps, but the iPhone and iPod have changed the industry, created their own industries, and thrust Apple from an almost cult-followed company to the company that all others try to emulate. For years the holy grail of tech companies has been the development of one ubiquitous, portable device that does everything. Apple, it seems, may have accomplished this.

Now if only the darn thing had a real keyboard...

JM Kelly, The IT Entrepreneur

Lower Credit Card Interest Rate to Reduce Debt

According to bankrate.com, the average credit card interest rate for a "Balance Transfer Card" is 13.74%. The average interest rate for a "Low Interest Card" is 9.23%. Why in the world would someone carry a card with these interest rates?

Because of bank card voodoo that my own bank pulled on me, I was forced to scour the Internet looking for a better deal. Here's what I found: Simmons First Bank out of Arkansas.

For a balance transfer Visa Platinum card, they offer a fixed rate of 7.25%! This card also comes with NO ANNUAL FEE!

To apply online, go to: http://www.simmonsfirst.com/personal_banking/credit_cards/visa_platinum.aspx

Remember, to pay off credit card and other debt, attack the highest interest rates first with extra payments and pay the minimum on the others. This technique will systematically pay off your debts and free up monthly cash flow sooner.

JM Kelly, The IT Entrepreneur

Laid Off: 15 Steps to Take if you Lose Your Job

In today’s uncertain times, many people are finding themselves part of a nasty statistic, being one of the unemployed masses having to find work. This usually hits people who least expect it, and the task of finding another job can seem overwhelming.

Being an IT freelancer for a dozen years, over time I acquired the skills of being a “professional work finder”, if you will. For me “the end” was not usually due to a corporate downsizing, but rather, was in plain sight 3, 6, or 12 months over the horizon. While the techniques I used were successful in IT contracting, they will work in any industry and for permanent employment.

These are listed in general order or priority:

1. Control Your Emotions
While it is easy to get very attached to a job or role, remember that it does not define you. The position was the company’s job anyway, not yours, and you only worked there. There will be other work with other companies.

2. Settle up with your old Company
It sounds like a no-brainer, but it a hurry to get out the door (especially if you are emotional) you might forget to submit your last expense report, collect your books and reference materials, etc. Also, don’t forget your potted plant. They can afford to buy their own with the money saved by your departure.

3. Update Resume’, and Send it out Fast
Do this ASAP! Target 48 hours to have your resume’ updated and posted on the top five or so online job boards (i.e. Monster.com). If you have prior relationships with recruiters or headhunters, contact them as well.

4. Sign Up for Unemployment Benefits
I never had this opportunity, but if you are eligible, take the time to wait in line and sign up. This is not welfare; it is government sponsored insurance that YOU have paid into. Now it is the government’s turn to pay you…

5. Re-evaluate your Financial Position
By the time you get home, you have no doubt already done this in your head. However, take time to sit down and re-visit (or create) your budget. Separate your needs from your wants, and do without the wants for a while. The largest expenses are the mortgage (or rent), insurance, utilities, and car notes or other notes. Can these be reduced? What else can you eliminate?

6. Check the secondary or niche’ Job Boards and Help Wanted Ads Online
Sometimes leads are not as obvious or not listed with the big websites.

7. Search Targeted Company Websites
Always wanted to work for Google? Check out their employment page.

8. Network, Network, Network
This is arguably the most important step in the list. Networking includes not only recruiters and HR people; it also includes friends, family, former colleagues, casual contacts, and basically anyone who will listen.

Attend networking events and job fairs with resume’s and personal business cards in hand.

Post your need for employment on sites like LinkedIn.com and Facebook.com . I found my current position using LinkedIn, when a recruiter spotted my profile and experience!

9. Cultivate List of Recruiters, HR Consultants, and Agents
As you meet people along the way to your next position, be sure to put them in your contact list for future use.

10. Keep Track of The Process
* Leads
* Companies Contacted
* Resume’s Sent Out

11. Don’t Raid Investments, or run up Credit Cards
Sometimes this is necessary, but do so only as a last resort.

12. Keep Your Insurance
You are the most vulnerable now, as is your family or dependents. You might consider raising deductibles to lower your payments, but keep all of your insurance in full effect.

13. Get Some extra Training
Now is a great time to take a short course on some new skill or technology; plus, it’ll look good on your resume’.

14. Keep Yourself Occupied
Don’t sleep late everyday and watch TV, get out in the world. See #8 above.

15. Success is in the Follow-Up
Any good salesperson will tell you this; most folks are easily discouraged and give up. Follow up interviews with calls and a personal, hand-written thank you. Hiring managers are busy and distracted. The follow up could tilt the scales in your favor.

Good luck in finding your next job (or contract). Remember, creation is an act of shear will. If all else fails, start a new company with a great business model, borrow money in the company’s name, and conquer the world!

JM Kelly, The IT Entrepreneur

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A New Resolution: Help Others Succeed Financially

This time of year, everyone has a resolution: lose weight, exercise more, call mom more often, etc. With the state of the current economy, most folks are resolving just to stay employed and keep their homes. You don’t need me to say just how scary things are now.

However, in contemplating what 2009 holds for me, I realized that I have much to be thankful for. While a lot of people are losing their jobs or homes, I am gainfully employed and in fact, looking for my next investment property (more than likely, a foreclosure). Hopefully, financing will be easier to obtain than what I hear in the news.

My resolution this year is to find more secrets of wealth building and protection and to share what I find. Call it “investment tithing”. The great motivational speaker, salesman and author Zig Ziglar once said "You can have anything you want in life if you will help enough other people get what they want."

It is this very reason that Internet social networks are all the rage now. Since I have many, many things in life that I still want, I’m going to be very busy in 2009 helping others.

May this year find you successful and prosperous…

JM Kelly, The IT Entrepreneur

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Profile of an IT Entrepreneur

Last week, I had the opportunity to meet a true IT Entrepreneur at a Learning Tree course on Microsoft SharePoint. Dux Raymond Sy was the instructor of the class and he works for Innovative-e, a technology consulting and services company based in Atlanta.

More than “just” a consultant, instructor, and blogger, Dux is also a bona-fide author (not that bloggers like myself are not) with the recent release of his new O’Reilly book entitled SharePoint for Project Management: How to Create a Project Management Information System (PMIS) with SharePoint. Dux is a SharePoint expert, and has the ear of the Microsoft SharePoint developers themselves.

SharePoint is a tool used for storing and exchanging business files within an organization or group. It is a web-based project management tool, collaboration tool, data exchange, and repository among other things. This powerful tool is emerging as the Microsoft platform on which future Microsoft products will be integrated and deployed.

I admire Dux’ energy and stamina in all of the projects that he undertakes. I also highly recommend Dux’ new book, and wish him the best of luck with it.

Dux resides in the Washington DC area and can be reached through his blog at www.meetDux.com .

JM Kelly, The IT Entrepreneur

Management Overdrive

If you are a sci-fi/horror buff like I am, you probably remember the Stephen King book made into a cheesy flick called “Maximum Overdrive”, circa 1986, where the machines of the world were suddenly possessed by a sinister force from outer space, whose sole purpose was to rid the world of mankind.

There is another sinister force which I have personally witnessed in companies of all sizes, this is the force of micro-management. Sometimes this is a corporate cultural phenomenon, but often it is a single person in mid-level management who makes life absolutely miserable for anyone working under him/her.

My theory on this type of management (in large corporations) is one where insecurity in ones’ own effectiveness or inability to trust underlings to do their jobs leads to constant surveillance. It also leads to employee resentment of not only the leader, but also the company and their particular job.

With startups and smaller companies owned by the entrepreneur, micro-management is more of a rule than the exception. Entrepreneurs are visionaries, and tend to trust their instincts more than their own people with carrying out that vision. Often times the entrepreneur can take his company only so far before having to hand the reins over to the leadership to take the company to the next level.

With large, established corporations, micro-management is usually the exception to the rule due to various checks and balances. Where it exists, however, it’s that mid-level manager who wreaks havoc on morale.

Here’s a great example:
In the throes of a large ERP software upgrade project, complex, over budget, and understaffed, a team of experts works diligently to meet project milestones.

Since the project has slipped on some deadlines, and communication with the business users is sometimes lacking, a daily priority conference call is established to “hasten” the project along. This, in conjunction with a daily project defect call with the software vendor, and the team is losing 10 man-hours of productivity per person, per week. Add this to about 5 hours for various other “touchy-feely” meetings, and each person is giving up 15 hours per week to meetings; meetings that take people away from their keyboards.

To make matters worse, the team’s micro-manager pays a visit almost every hour-on-the-hour, asking how much has been accomplished since his last visit. This incessant noise is akin to a 5 year olds’ constant questioning while on a long road trip, “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”, as if repeated asking will alter space/time, and deliver a quicker result. In fact, it has the opposite effect.

Unless of course the road trip is in a car named “Christine”, in which case the project was doomed from the start…

JM Kelly, The IT Entrepreneur

LLC or INC for Flipping Houses?

As a real estate investor, I am repeatedly asked this question: “Should I buy property in my name, or in the name of an LLC or Incorporated company?” I have an LLC under which I own properties, but feel I should let an expert address that question.

I posed the question to Annette Coker, a licensed broker/realtor, and good friend.

Annette’s response:
“I have houses in an LLC and here are the downsides:
Financing is impossible to get, so you buy the home in the individual’s name and quitclaim at closing to your LLC.

There are other disadvantages, too. If you want to get a line of credit you will pay a higher interest rate. Also, homeowners’ insurance will be higher. As soon as you put real estate into an LLC, it becomes commercial and I personally think it’s a pain.

However, if you ever get sued, apparently the person suing cannot get your personal assets. I question that, too, as with the Internet and other technologies a person can find you even if you hide behind the umbrella of an LLC. It would all boil down to liabilities and the "corporate veil". An attorney could provide more insight into this…

No, I do not think the LLC is the best way to flip. It is questionable in my mind whether it is the best way to even hold long term; a Land Trust is another vehicle that may be more attractive than an LLC.

The primary difference between the INC and the LLC for real estate is that there is less accounting involved with the LLC, and tax reporting is easier (far less complex). Most people do LLC’s for real estate.”

Thanks to Annette for taking the time to answer this question. She can be contacted through her company, Chapman Hall Realtors Premier at http://www.chrpremier.com/

JM Kelly, The IT Entrepreneur

The 800-lb Gorilla

We all know the metaphor about the 800-lb Gorilla, or the large customer who gets his way. Dealing with these brutes can be quite the challenge, especially given the delicate politics of the situation.

The vendor to the 800-lb Gorilla has many obstacles:

the signing of strict legal contracts, agreeing to long payment terms, satisfying tight delivery dates, and complying with the electronic delivery of business documents at a precise level of accuracy.

Because of the volume of "bananas" and magnitude of product replenishment, the Gorilla's appetite for efficiencies exists throughout the entire supply chain. From the procurement of raw materials, through manufacturing and distribution, numerous techniques are employed to streamline the process; Just-In-Time inventory is one example; Track and Tracing is another.

The Gorillas have their processes honed to a science... at least most of them do. Not long ago, I was assisting a small supplier to a large retailer in correcting some of their electronic documents. The documents were already in production, but the supplier started receiving charge backs (fees) from the retailer due to non-compliance.

One example of non-compliance was that the retailer required an ANSI X12 Inventory Advice. The supplier was transmitting the document as agreed, but a particular data element was not in the format desired by the retailer. My task was to research and fix the "bad" element. Sounds simple, right?

We fixed the inventory advice and wanted to test with the retailer. This spawned numerous calls through the business channels to ultimately obtain a "vendor hotline" number. Calling this number landed us in India, and the person on the other end had no idea what the electronic document was. Our case was escalated to level 2.

A couple of days later, we were contacted by level 2 (still offshore), but the person was proficient in X12 terminology. After explaining our intent, she gave us another contact who deals directly with testing. We called this number, only to get a message that the test coordinator was out of the office for the next two days. We are now one week into the task, charge backs are coming, tempers flaring, and no hope of resolution until after testing next week.

After about three weeks of playing electronic musical chairs, the retailer and the supplier are both finally satisfied; although my team and I (along with the management) are mentally exhausted. In this example, the need for efficiency created an inefficient process. A process fashioned by the very Gorilla who wanted efficiency in the first place.

Or maybe this Gorilla was more of an Orangutan? ;)

JM Kelly, The IT Entrepreneur

How do I incorporate (form a legal entity)?

By now, I hope that you have made the conscience decision to legally structure your company. Doing so will help to limit your liabilities by providing for protection of your personal assets. It will also help reduce your tax burden and provide for the writing off of expenses with pre-tax dollars.

The ability to file ones’ own paperwork is now tremendously easier thanks to The Internet. Traditionally, you would have had to hire an attorney, legal secretary, or other legal professional to assist you (and you still can if you feel uncertain).

If you want to tackle the job yourself, you can save a few hundred dollars by doing so. The best place to start is with the Secretary of State in your home state. You can also form your corporation in other states that make the process easier; for example, Delaware is known as a corporate haven. From their website: “More than 800,000 business entities have their legal home in Delaware including more than 50% of all U.S. publicly-traded companies and 60% of the Fortune 500.” See the Delaware Secretary’s corporation division at http://corp.delaware.gov/

When checking the Secretary’s website (in any state), bear in mind that the name you have picked out may already be taken, so it’s a good idea to establish your name before printing up letterhead, creating advertisements, etc. The process takes only a few minutes, and most states will immediately issue your state registration number.

The next step is to go to the IRS EIN website and apply for an EIN (Employer Identification Number), which is similar to a Social Security Number, but for the business. Once on this page, click the “APPLY ONLINE NOW” button. You will need this EIN to open a bank account in the name of the corporation.

Other considerations:
You will have to decide which type of corporate structure is best for your business and your tax situation. If you are unsure, check with an accountant or CPA. I have found that for small business, the S-corp or an LLC is best. If you are a sole proprietor, then a single member LLC is a good choice, and allows you to file an extra schedule on your regular 1040 tax form (versus filing both corporate and personal tax forms each year).

If you are still unclear whether or not you can do all of the paperwork yourself, try using http://www.legalzoom.com/ as they have a good reputation for assisting business owners through the corporate structuring process.

Good Luck!
JM Kelly, The IT Entrepreneur

Should I Form an LLC or INC.?

Corporations, or businesses that operate under a corporate structure, go back as early as the 1300s. Modern corporations are similar to those during the days of trade expansion into The Americas by countries seeking riches and imports from foreign lands. By forming corporations, partner ventures could limit their liabilities in the event of unforeseen circumstances: hurricanes, reefs, wars, pirates and so on.

Today, we have the same objectives (limiting personal liabilities) and the same mechanisms (corporate entities); only the reasons and structures have changed over the years.

In the United States and other countries, there are tremendous tax incentives to further motivate business owners to incorporate. Officers in the corporation can legally pay themselves a salary for part of their income, and then pay themselves a profit dividend at a lower tax rate for the rest of their income. Further, expenses related to the business are pulled out of the profit before taxes, another huge plus of the corporation.

For these reasons, it is my hope that you will consider forming a corporate structure to protect your business and yourself from liabilities and maximize your profits.

See also my earlier blog entry “We Don’t Need no Stinkin’ Corporation.”

In my next blog, I’ll expand on how to incorporate.

JM Kelly, The IT Entrepreneur

There's no secret to "The Secret"

Unless you live in a cave, you have no doubt heard of the book and video entitled The Secret, which teaches that you can have anything you want simply by wishing for it (or asking The Universe for it).

Mystical and religious beliefs aside, the basis of The Secret, The Law of Attraction, has been around for centuries. The Law of Attraction states basically that "you get what you think about" and "like attracts like". There have been several books written on the subject, all of which are scrutinized by the scientific community.

Based on my personal observations, there are some truths to the claim. In business, people who exude negativity will, in fact, attract negative people. The same could be said of positive people, criminals, entrepreneurs, etc. The best method I have found to locate projects (i.e. work, food on the table) is by referrals. I would not get good referrals if people thought poorly of me, which they would if I were an ass.

The reason that there’s no secret to “The Secret” is because others have written about it before. One of my favorite books, the classic Think and Grow Rich! by Napoleon Hill, tells the secret of wealth accumulation told by 500 self made multimillionaires. Commissioned by the legendary industrialist Andrew Carnegie and taking 20 years to write, this book illustrates the parallels of people who built wealth for themselves out of “nothing but the power of their minds”.

Being scientifically minded myself, yet open to possibilities, I feel there are connections between human thoughts (energy) and the fabric of the universe. According to renowned author and physicist Brian Greene, everything we perceive is made of tiny strings of vibrating energy; everything including our bodies and minds, our thoughts, and of course, money and material objects. These tiny strings vibrate in a universal symphony to form our reality. Check out The Elegant Universe if this interests you.

Whether you believe in the Law of Attraction or not, it is hard to argue with the fact that a positive mental attitude goes a long way. Couple this with mutual cooperation for the purpose of achieving a common goal, and your business endeavors will stand a far better chance at success.

JM Kelly, The IT Entrepreneur